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Cornelius Fichtner will take you in hand and tell you all what you need to know to plan and pass the PMP exam, I have been impressed by the quality of information provided by the PM PrepCast that covers both PMBOK guide and real life experience that new project managers will definitely need to master. The PM PrepCast is a great option if you want to get 35 contact hours that is a prerequisite to apply for the PMP exam, The PM PrepCast is an invaluable resource if you are planning to be PMP certified

Introduction

Getting PMP training that will give you 35 contact hours for $99.97 $129.99 is a great value by all the means, a quick comparison with other PMP training products, that is already available at The PM PrepCast, will show you how cost effective is the PM PrepCast, and to be honest it is not about the price only, the content is invaluable! What is really special about the PM PrepCast is it tells you literally everything you need to know about PMP from day zero till the day you renew your PMP for the first time, I have seen many PMP certified folks who don’t know how to get the 60 PDUs to renew the PMP certificate, Cornelius takes the responsibility of making you aware of the whole story, some information like the PDUs categories that most of PMP certified folks don’t know about is available in the PM PrepCast.

The reason I am writing this review is to help you with your PMP endeavour by selecting the right product with the least amount you will need to pay, I am not an affiliate of the PM PrepCast nor have I received money to write this review, I also didn’t use the PM PrepCast to pass the PMP exam as I am already PMP certified, it is also important for you to know that I didn’t watch the entire training that is 47 hours long due to time constraints, I have randomly picked some episodes about key knowledge areas and based on this I have written this review.

When I saw the PM PrepCast for the first time, I though it was a scam and quickly passed over it, I couldn’t easily get convinced that I can get my 35 contact hours for this small amount, perhaps the guys at OSP International need to pay more attention to marketing and make their website more appealing. You don’t have to worry about whether it is trusted training provider or not because OSP International is a Registered Education Provider (R.E.P) it means it is officially recognized by Project Management Institution, you can view OSP International listed as R.E.P at PMI website

Package Details

1- Training: It is based on PMBOK Guide 4.0, the material includes 38 hours of video and 9.5 hours of audio, as soon as you register you will get a link to a customized RSS feed that you can add to iTunes or an RSS Reader and you will then get all the episodes downloaded. The trainer speaks while moving through slides created using Microsoft Power Point 2007 with heavy use of Smart Art graphics that I found very cool and sometimes eye-catching.

2- 35 Contact Hours Certificate: After a couple of weeks from the day you download the training, you will receive an email informing you that episode # 99.00 has been made ready for download, the episode is a PDF file that includes instructions about how to take the exam you will need to pass in order to receive the 35 contact hours certificate, you don’t have to worry about passing the exam from the first time as you can try as many times as you want until you pass it, if you are in a rush and want to take the exam in less than a couple of weeks time from the day you purchase the product, (which I highly doubt) you will have to keep this time constraint in mind.

3- 60 PMP® sample questions: One of the downloads you will receive is a PDF document that includes 60 sample questions along with justification of answers selection, there is also a video episode that includes 15 more sample questions.

4- Email Course -10 Steps to Becoming a PMP: It is important to have some company while studying for the PMP exam, this course will set you on the right path and will provide you guidance and practical study plan, you will almost receive one mail a day, the emails cover the whole journey starting from eligibility to gaining PDUs

5- The PMP® / CAPM® Exam Study Checklist: Great checklist that includes everything you will need and will not leave a chance for you to forget anything while getting busy with study

6- Access to Exam Discussion Forums: discussion boards where students can ask questions and share lessons learned after passing the exam

According to the PM PrepCast, the last 5 items are bonus items that are worth $285

THE PROS

1- Outstanding Value: PMP training has never been more cost effective, getting a professional PMP online training for $99.97 $129.99 is a great opportunity for whoever wants to get familiar with project management or prepare for PMP exam

2- 35 Contact Hours Certificate: While this may be your main reason for buying the PM PrepCast, you will really learn a lot from the PM PrepCast, at the time of writing this review, OSP International claims that PM PrepCast is the only online audio seminar that can give you the 35 contact hours certificate!

3- Great and Various Content: The great thing about the PM PrepCast is it deeply and simply explains both basic and advanced concepts that you will need to grasp in order to pass the PMP exam, it also elaborates on PMBOK guide topics as well as real life experience concepts, this diversity will not make you bored while listening/watching the episodes

4- Take It Anywhere: It is a modern way to study for the PMP exam, no matter where you are, you can always take it with you, whether you are running on the treadmill or driving you can use this time to study, I used iPod Touch to listen/watch to the episodes, however you can use any portable media player to take the training with you anywhere

5- High Quality Content:whether you watch the episodes on your LCD TV or iPod you will always be able to see the text and the neat smart art graphics clearly, one of the things I really liked is the synchronization between the trainer’s voice and the animation of the slides, it is crystal clear that Cornelius has done too much effort to keep this accurate synchronization

6- Unconditional Money Back: If you don’t like the training for any reason you can simply ask for an unconditional refund and get your money back, one of the things that I really liked is the trust that Cornelius is trying to be keep with the customers by not asking for “un-downloading” the training, he also has put a nice story about someone who used a friend’s training to study for the PMP exam and after he has passed the exam he decided to buy the PM PrepCast as a token of appreciation and also to avoid breaking the copyright

7- It’s Honey dude: Honey never expires, the honey that has been found in tombs of pharaohs was tested by explorers and was edible! same applies to the PM PrepCast it doesn’t expire like most of other online trainings, you can keep it for as long as you can, you also can use it to remember basic concepts after you will have passed the PMP exam

8- Built For International Customers: No slang terms, no difficult idioms, and no hard to understand accent, the English used to record the training is very much understandable, if you have humble English, like mine, you won’t have any difficulty to understand the content, if English is not your first language, the PM PrepCast is the best for you!

9- PMBOK Compliant: Unlike other PMP trainings, the PM PrepCast is honouring Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs, majority of PMP exam questions are either asking about the inputs/outputs in a direct way or tells you a distracting story and ultimately asks about the inputs/outputs in an indirect way. I also have found using consistent colour code for processes that belong to specific process groups a good way to remind students what processes belong to which process group

10- No Need To Take a Leave or Night Training: perhaps this may not be a unique pro of the PM PrepCast since all online trainings gives you this advantage, it is really an important advantage, I remember that when I wanted to take the PMP training I had to attend 10 night sessions, 4 hours each, I spent a couple of weeks attending night sessions from 6 PM to 10 PM that left me very exhausted and I also was unsatisfied with the quality of the training and experience of instructors that I wasn’t able to know of before applying at the training. I want to tell you one more thing that not every PMP certified will be able to explain PMBOK guide and help you to pass the PMP exam, the PM PrepCast makes you avoid this risk by using a professional training that also allows you to get your money back if you are not satisfied for any reason, I am always searching for good cost effective online training deals for other PMI’s certificates ,and I hope Cornelius can create similar products for other PMI’s certificates ( PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, and PgMP )

THE CONS

1- Repetitions: I have seen many repetitions across episodes that belong to the same knowledge area, I believe that this has been done in purpose to remind students again and over again of core concepts, I found it unnecessary since students can simply replay episodes if needed

2- Long: 47 hours is a very long duration, the duration can be limited to 35 hours by avoiding repetitions

3- Small Number of Questions: 75 questions are not enough, more questions have to be added, however you can always augment this small number with many free PMP questions

4- Slow Download: I downloaded the training using iTunes and it took very long time to complete, maybe this is related to my connection, however it has been disconnected so many times, the good news is that you can always resume

5- Website Needs Refurbishing: The homepage is very busy, just like any other website that sells a product the homepage is the first impression that a customer gets, some information such as the list of episodes doesn’t not have to be in the homepage. The website is not updated I have found under the exam forum a message that says: “Please note that Cornelius Fichtner is on vacation and he will not respond to your questions in the forum at this time”, the discussion board is not expected to be managed by one person, getting some customers who already have passed the exam to administer the discussion boards and answer questions can be a good alternative. I also found 7 threads in the discussion board, the site needs more work!

THE BOTTOM LINE

The PM PrepCast is a great resource and very much cost effective, despite the cons I have listed above, I strongly recommend it, in fact getting 35 contact hours certificate for $99.97 $129.99 is one of the best deals I have come across, you also need to know that the PM PrepCast cannot replace the PMBOK guide that you will have to read several times, wish you all the best in your PMP journey, you can buy the PM PrepCast from here!

If you already have used the PM PrepCast to pass the PMP exam it would be great to share your experience in the comments section

Update (15/09/2010) : I am currently an affiliate of the PM PrepCast, if you read this review and decide to buy the PM PrepCast, please click this link in order for OSP International to identify the referrer

Mohammed, you should check out Cornelius’ other offering for PDUs at http://GetMyPDUs.com – one of the webinars from year 2 is with me teaching about using Kanban and other Lean thinking techniques and tools for project management.Josh Nankivel recently posted..How To Find A New Job

As their are many online PMP certification training course provider one of the best though which i did my training and cleared the exam is KnowledgeWoods Consulting Live training programonline pmp certification training recently posted..Study Guide for Exam 2

Hi Kareem,
Nice overview. In Section 4 of your review (Email Course -10 Steps to Becoming a PMP) You mention that it is important to have some company while studying for the PMP exam. Can you elaborate on this comment for me?

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Greetings!

Welcome to my blog, I use this blog to write about portfolio, program, & project management, leadership, soft skills, people management, creativity, NLP, positive thinking, productivity tools, general management, software solutions, software, and anything else that I see worthwhile to write about. you can subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on twitter, connect via LinkedIn and I urge you to leave a comment, bookmark, and re-tweet posts you like, Thanks! Kareem Shaker, Dubai, UAE